ANOTHER DAY ON THE GROUNDS.
The next mornin’ we got onto the grounds early and took a short tower through the Main Buildin’ when Josiah says to me all of a sudden:
“Less go and be elevated Samantha!”
Says I, “What do you mean, Josiah Allen?” I was skairt; I thought he was goin’ the way of lunys.
“Why,” says he “I mean less go and be elevated up in the elevator.”
“Oh!” says I, “I thought you wanted me to go and git intoxicated with you.”
I didn’t blame Josiah, for I knew it was a principle implanted in his sect to see all they could see, but still I hung back; I didn’t feel like it; somehow I didn’t feel like bein’ elevated; and knowin’ what would be the strongest argument to bear onto him, I mentioned the expense, but he argued back again:
“Ten cents won’t make or break us. Do less be elevated Samantha; come on, less.”
So seein’ he was determined on’t, we went back again into the Main Buildin’ and was elevated. And what a sight that was that was spread out below us. Never shall I forget it while memory sets up in her high chair. As I looked on it all, I couldn’t think of but jest one thing, how the—the—D—D—David took the Master up on a high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms and glory of the world, and—Josiah hunched me jest then and says he: “Haint you glad I took you up here, Samantha?”
And then I told him what I was thinkin’ of, and he didn’t seem to like it; he wanted to know in a cross, surly tone “if I was a hingin’ on him;” I told him I wasn’t.
And then we traipsed around to see several other things, until I was tired completely out. I thought seein’ so much would sort o’ quiet Josiah down, but it only made him more rampant to see more; he wanted to see some wild beasts; he said he wanted to go to the bear pits.
Says I, “I don’t want to see any wild beasts.”
“Well,” says he, “you set down here and rest, and I will come back in half an hour or three quarters.”
So he left me, and soon after, I thought I would saunter around the grounds all alone by myself, and while doin’ so, I arrove at the same fountain I and Josiah had looked upon several days previous; where the beautiful girls was upholdin’ the platter on which the water was a fallin’; and as my eyes fell upon it, they also fell upon the form of my Josiah, a gazin’ upon the female figgers in wrapped attention.
ADMIRIN’ THE BEAUTIFUL WATER.
AMONG THE WILD BEASTS
But as I have remarked once before (I believe,) I haint a jealous hair in my head, but I can’t deny that I was dumbfoundered now. I took him firmly by the arm; says I:
“What are you a lookin’ at, Josiah Allen?”
He was awful surprised; but it’s wonderful how the male sect will turn off anything. Says he: “I was a admirin’ the water, Samantha, how beautiful it biles up and then falls down into the platter.” And he turned round to the fountain.
Says I, “Josiah Allen, are these the wild beasts, is this the bear pit you wanted to see?” And I added in dry tones: “You had better hereafter remain near your pardner.” And I led him away. We sauntered along for some time, but Josiah was dretful uneasy. I never see him so restless; and anon, says he: “I feel to-day, somehow, Samantha, jest like meanderin.”
I see it was no use to restrain him, and says I:
“Well, you can keep right on a meanderin’, but I can’t meander another step.” Says I—wipin’ my heated forward on my white cotton handkerchief—“I have meandered too much now for my own good, and I must go to some quiet spot, where I can rest both my limbs and the eyes of my spectacles, for they are both fearfully weary. I must have a little quiet, Josiah Allen.”
Says he, “How will you git holt of any quiet here, Samantha?”
Says I, “I have heerd it is to be obtained down in the raven between this Hall and the Artemus Gallery;” so he said he would meet me there in a couple of hours, and started off. The raven (probable so called from ravens bein’ found there in the past) is perfectly delightful. A brook goes laughin’ through it; there is beautiful shady walks and bridges, easy benches are to be found under the great noble forest trees, and there is green grass, and ferns, and daisies, and a spring with a tin-dipper. It is a lovely place, and I sot down feelin’ first-rate. Nobody’s arms, not even the most trained nurses, can rest a tired baby so well as its mother’s; nobody can rest the weary, and fatigued out like Nater. I hadn’t been there more’n 2 minutes before I begun to feel rested off, and as it is my way to do, I begun to think deeply and allegore to myself. Thinks’es I, here I be in Pennsylvany; and then I went to thinkin’ of Penn,—thought what a noble, good man he was; thinks’es I, no wonder the Pennsylvanyans have prospered; no wonder the Sentinal stands firm, for they all stand on ground honestly bought from their true owners, by that noble Penn, and paid for.
THE INDIAN QUESTION
And then I thought a sight about Penn; how firm his scalp always stood, how peaceful his frontiers was, and I wondered if there would be so much Injun difficulty if the spirit of honesty, justice, and truth, that he showed to the Injuns, could be showed to ’em now. Anyway, as I sot there, I wished eloquently to myself, that when he ascended to the Heavens prepared for just men, his mantilly could have fell onto the men who make our laws, and could be wore now in Washington by them, and laid gracefully accrost the Injun Buro.
I was just a thinkin’ this to myself when I see a dretful pleasant lookin’ lady come and set down on a bench only a little ways from me. She had such a good look onto her that I says to a man who happened to be a goin’ by where I sot, “Can you tell me who that lady is?” “Mrs. Ulysses Grant,” says he. “Not she that was Julia Dent?” says I. “Yes,” says he. I walked right up to her and says I—holdin’ out my hand in a warm and affectionate manner:
“How do you do, Julia? I am highly tickled to see you; how does the baby do—and how does Mr. Dent’ses folks do? Are they all so as to be about?” says I, “I am Josiah Allen’s wife.”
“Oh!” says she, “I have heerd my husband speak of you.” And she shook hands with me, and made room on the bench for me to set down by her.
“Yes,” says I, “I rescued him when he called for peace and couldn’t find it; I had the honor of savin’ him from pain and Betsey Bobbet.” I thought I would explain it to her, though she didn’t act jealous a mite. But it is always best to explain to wimmen jest what business you and her pardner have been talkin’ about.’ It may save some bad feelin’ towards you, and some curtain lectures for him.
Says I, “I had a talk with your husband in the cause of Right, and advised the Nation promiscously through him. But there was several other things I wanted to say, but I see he was gittin’ hungry, and so, of course, fractious and worrysome, and I stopped in a minute, for I well know there is a time to advise men, and a time to refrain from it.” Says I, “Wimmen who have had a man to deal with for any length of time, learn to take advantage of times and seasons.”
I see by her looks she didn’t want no tutorin’ on that subject—she haint nobody’s fool. Says she, “What did you want to speak to my husband about?”
Says I, “I wanted to talk to him more about the Injuns.”
Says she, “My husband has honestly tried to do the best he could with ’em.”
Says I, “I believe it Julia; I believe it from nearly the bottom of my heart.”
Says she, “They are a low, dirty, degraded race.”
Says I, “It haint reasonable to expect to git high-toned virtues and principles from ignorance and superstition. Think of minds narrowed down to one thought, by a total lack of culture and objects of interest; think of their constant broodin’ over the centuries of wrongs they think they have endured from the white race; and what wonder is it that this spirit flames out occasionally in deeds that make the world shudder. And then, people will shet their eyes to the causes that led to it, and lift up their hands in horrer, and cry out for extermination.”
Says Julia, “It is Destiny; it is the wave of civilization and progress that is movin’ on from the East to the West. The great resistless wave whose rush and might nothin’ can withstand. Rushin’ grandly onward, sweepin’ down all obstacles in its path.”
Says I, “Julia, that is a sublime idee of yourn, very sublime, and dretful comfortin’ to the waves; but let me ask you in a friendly way, haint it a little tough on the obstacles?”
She said that it was, though she hadn’t never looked at it so much in that light before.
“Yes,” says I, “I know jest how it is; you have looked at the idee with the eye of a wave. But that wont do, Julia; when we look at an idee we must look at it from more than one side; we must look at it with several pair of eyes in order to git the right light onto it;” says I, “I don’t blame you for lookin’ at it with the eye of a wave—a noble, sublime eye, full of power, and might, and glory, calm and stiddy as eternity. And then to be fair, we ort to look at it with the eye of a obstacle, pleadin’, and frightened, and melancholly, with a prophecy of comin’ doom. And when we s’posen the case, it wont do for us to s’posen ourselves waves all the hull time, we must, in order to be just, s’posen ourselves obstacles part of the time. And s’posen you was a obstacle, Julia, and your Ulysses was one, and s’posen I was one, and my Josiah was another one; this wouldn’t hinder us from bein’ faint when we hadn’t nothin’ to eat; and our legs from achin’ when we had been drove clear from the Atlantic to the Pacific; and our hearts from greivin’ when we was forced from our homes to let our enemies live there; and our eyes from rainin’ floods of tears when they see our loved ones fallin’ by our side for defendin’ our homes from what we look upon as a invader. It wouldn’t hinder our hearts from breakin’ when we was drove off and denied the right even to weep over the graves where our hopes was a lyin’ buried up with our beloved obstacles.”
Julia was almost in tears, but she reminded me that they only used the land for low, triflin’ pursuits; such as huntin’ and other worthless amusements; that we put it to better use.
Says I, “Julia, I haint a denyin’ of it, I haint said, and I haint a goin’ to say that it wasn’t necessary to plough up and smooth out their graveyards to make race courses and base ball and crokay grounds for our nobler race; I haint denied it; I was only remindin’ you, that it seemed to be uncommon tough on ’em; that is all. I think on ’em a sight;” says I, “how they used to own the hull of this continent; a friendly, peaceable set Columbus said they was; would have done anything for him, knelt right down and worshipped him, they was so glad to see him. It seems sort o’ pitiful to me, to think they looked with such reverent admirin’ eyes on the comin’ race that was to destroy ’em; knelt down and kissed the white hands that was to strike ’em such fearful blows; thought they come right down from heaven; and how soon they didn’t think so—how soon they thought they come from a different place. I s’pose they was a simple, well meanin’, childlike lot, livin’ so near to Nater, that they got nearer to her heart than we can ever think of gittin’. And the mountains and waters cling to their names yet; it seems as if they don’t forget ’em; the Alleghany’s seem to be a liftin’ up their heads a lookin’ for the Alleghanies and wonderin’ what has become of ’em. The Deleware seems to be a rushin’ along clear to the sea, a huntin’ for the Delewares; and Huron and Erie git fairly mad, and storm and rage a hollerin’ for the Hurons and Eries; and old Ontario, I never see her but what she seems to be a murmurin’ and whisperin’ sunthin’ about the Ontarios; her blue waters have a sort of a mournful sound to me; a nevermore sounds in the wave as it swashes up on the beach, as if it was a cryin’ out to me, askin’ me what we have done with ’em. Her great breast seems to be a heavin’ up and sithin’ for the fate of them whose canoes used to float on her bosom—them light canoes that have floated off further and further, till pretty soon the last one will float off into that ocian whose further shore we haint never seen.”
Says Julia, “I will speak to my husband on the subject at once.”
Says I, “So do; and choose the time when he is cleverer than common, jest as I would deal with my Josiah.”
Then I told her, that I would be glad to stay right by her all the afternoon, I felt such a friendship for her but, says I, “you know Julia that even respect and admiration, when they come in conflict with love, have to stand back; and my companion I know is almost famishin’ with hunger, and I have got the key to the satchel bag containin’ our lunch;” and says I, “you know what ravages hunger makes in a man.” She said she knew it well and that I was perfectly excusable. And I bid her good-bye and started on towards the place where I promised to meet my Josiah. I found him a watchin’ the satchel bag, with a gloomy and fractious face, but after he eat, he looked well and happy again. His plan for the afternoon was to see all the live stock on the ground, all the iron work, the mineral annex, the warlike preparations of the different nations, their ships and farmin’ tools, the dairy, brewery, the model of Paris, the newspaper offices, the lighthouses, cheese factory, wagon shops, wind mills and the different tarverns, and he sot right out.
A SHORT ROLL.
MY SUCCESS AS P. A. AND P. I.
The statement of his plan—added to my meanderins and outlay of eloquence—had wearied me nearly out, but I knew well where to go and git rested. I knew what could take me right up—though my heft was great—and waft me off into a land where weariness was never admitted through its gate, where pain and tiredness and care never climbed over its fence. I didn’t know whether to go and be lifted up to this beautiful realm by the music in the glen, or the piano and organ concert in the Main Buildin’; but finally I chose the latter. And seatin’ my body on a seat I peacefully left this weary world, and for about a half or three quarters of an hour I was a triumphant and blessed citizen of that other world which is so near to ours that we can be transported to it in half a moment, and so fur off that no one can ever find the path a leadin’ to it, or tell how it is bounded, or how big it is, or who made it, or why it was made, or anything. But that it is a land of entrancin’ beauty and delight, that we all know; and I don’t know but I should have lingered in it all day, if a rollin’ chair containin’ a woman hadn’t rolled right onto me as I sot on the end of the seat; and bein’ rousted up and brought down to the world again, thinks’es I, I will take a short roll round the buildin’ myself. So I beconed to a young feller whose chair a lady had jest got out of, and took her place; but the move wasn’t a happyfyin’ one to me; I got to thinkin’; thinks’es I who knows where he’ll roll me off to—no knowin’ but what all of a sudden he’ll take a start and run with me clear out of sight. I put in a appearance of calm, and I thought I’d try to stand it a little longer, for I knew he’d think strange my gittin’ out so soon. But I couldn’t seem to sense a thing I see; I kep’ a thinkin’ of Josiah and the peril he was in mebby; I turned round and looked at the chap, and I mistrusted he looked sort o’ wild out of his eye; and I told him in agitated axents that if he was willin’, I’d pay him for the hull hour I bargained for, and git out on the spot. He seemed willin’, and I descended down out of the chair—and was glad of the chance.
Then I went and sot down on a bench by the noble fountain of Moses and Temperance, and I was episodin’ to myself what a hard time Mr. Moses did have in the wilderness, and how he made water flow out of a rock. And I wondered dreamily if he was here now if he wouldn’t have to give a harder knock ag’inst rocky hearts and the rocks of selfishness and custom, before he made water flow instead of likker; when first I knew, Josiah come and sot right down by me, and says he: “You know I told you this mornin’ Samantha, about the ‘Creation Searchers’ all wanderin’ off last night a searchin’ round and gittin’ lost again, and how Shakespeare Bobbet estimated that they had travelled in the neighborhood of one hundred and forty miles, and that he thought his father and old Dagget would be bed rid for life; and how that Shakespeare had shipped ’em home this mornin’ by car load—he goin’ along to lift ’em round, and keep ’em together—all but Solomon Cypher, Cornelius Cork, and the Editor of the Auger.”
“Yes,” says I, “you told me of it, but what of it?”
“Well,” says he, “the three ‘Creation Searchers’ that was left are in jail.”
“In jail, Josiah Allen?”
“Yes, in jail for playin’ horse and disturbin’ the peace. Sam Snyder has jest told me the particulars. They got to thinkin’ I s’pose, how many scrapes they had got into sense they was here as a body; how much money they had lost, and how much fun had been made of ’em; and they seemed to lose every mite of dignity, and every spec of decency they had got about ’em, and they all got drunk as fools—”
THE SENTINAL PROMISCOUS
Says I warmly, “I told the Nation jest how it would be, and I told you Josiah, but you wouldn’t believe me, neither on you, and now there is Solomon Cypher drunk as a fool; mebby you’ll hear to me another time, Josiah Allen.”
Says Josiah with a gloomy look, “I don’t see what you want to lay it all to me for; their sellin’ likker here to the Sentimental wasn’t my doin’s.”
“Well, you sort o’ upholded the Nation in it; did they catch ’em here to the Sentinal, Josiah?”
“No, they got their likker here, and then they went down into the village a cuttin’ up and actin’ every step of the way; and when they catched ’em they was playin’ horse right in front of the meetin’ house. Cornelius and the Editor was horses and old Cypher they say had got holt of their galluses a drivin’ ’em double; and he was a yellin’ and cluckin’ to ’em to git up, and they was a prancin’ and a snortin’, and the Editor of the Auger was pretendin’ to be balky, and was a kickin’ up and a whinnerin’; the likker had made three perfect fools of ’em. And what gauls me,” says he with a deprested look, “is, that a relation of ourn by marriage should be in the scrape; it will make such talk; and we mixed up in it.”
THE “CREATION SEARCHERS” IN JAIL
Says I calmly but firmly, “He must have a bail put onto him.”
“THE SENTINAL LICENSED.”
“I won’t put it on,” says he—and he added in a loud mad tone—“he won’t git no bails put onto him by me, not a darned bail.”
“Well,” says I, “if you haint no pity by you, you can probable stop swearin’ if you set out to. They are relations on your side Josiah Allen.”
“Throw the Widder in my face again will you!” says he, “if she was fool enough to marry him, she may take care of him for all of me, and if she wants any bails put onto him, she may put ’em on herself.”
Says I lookin’ my pardner calmly in the eye. “Ort from ort leaves how many Josiah Allen?”
“Ort,” says he, and snapped out, “what of it? What do you go a prancin’ off into Rithmatic for, such a time as this?”
Says I mildly, for principle held my temper by the reins, a leadin’ me along in the harness first-rate, “When you reckon up a row of orts and git ’em to amount to anything, or git anything from ’em to carry, then you can set the bride to doin’ sunthin’ and expect to have it done;” says I, “won’t Sam Snyder succor him?”
“No he won’t; he says he won’t and there haint a Jonesvillian that will; you won’t catch ’em at it.”
“Well,” says I firmly, with a mean that must have looked considerable like a certain persons at Smithfield when he was bein’ set fire to; “if you nor nobody else won’t go and help put a bail onto Solomon Cypher, I shall.”
And then Josiah hollered up and asked me if I was a dumb fool, and twitted me how hauty and overbearin’ Solomon had been to wimmen, how he had looked down on me and acted.
But says I calmly, “Josiah Allen, you have lived with me month after month, and year after year, and you don’t seem to realize the size and heft of the principles I am a carryin’ round with me, no more than if you never see me a performin’ with ’em on a tower. Rememberance of injuries, ridicule, nor Josiah can’t put up no bars accrost the path of Right high enough to stop Samantha. She is determined and firm; she will be merciful and heap coals of fire on the head of the guilty Cypher, for the sake of duty, and that weepin’ ort.”
And then Josiah pretended not to understand my poetic and figgerative speech, and said that—Solomon bein’ so bald—I’d have a chance to give him a good singein’ and he hoped I’d blister his old skull good.
And I walked off with dignity, and wouldn’t demean myself by sayin’ another word. He had told me where the bride was, and I started off; and though memory (as well as Josiah) hunched me up to remember how hauty the “Creation Searchers” had all been as a body, and how rampant they had been that a woman shouldn’t infringe on ’em, or come in contract with ’em, still the thought that they was moulderin’ in jail made me feel for them and their weepin’ brides.
The female elements in politics would be, as you may say, justice tempered down with mercy; justice kep’ a sayin’ to me, “Solomon Cypher is in jail and he ort to be, for truly he played horse and disturbed the peace;” but mercy whispered to me in the other ear: “If he is humbled down and willin’ to do better, give him a chance.”
Punishment if it means anything means jest that; it hadn’t ort to be malicious enjoyment to the punishers; it ort to be for the reformin’ of the criminals, and makin’ of ’em better. And that is why I never could believe that chokin’ folks to death was the way to reform ’em, and make better citizens of ’em.
I found the bride a settin’ like a statute of grief on a bench, a groanin’ and weepin’ and callin’ wildly on Doodle, and sayin’ if he was alive she wouldn’t be in that perdickerment—which I couldn’t deny, and didn’t try to. But I told her firmly that this was no time to indulge in her feelins, or call on Doodle, and if she wanted a bail put onto Solomon Cypher, we must hasten to his dungeon.
So we hurried onwards, and right in the path we met Gen. Hawley; and even then, in that curious time, I thought I never did see a handsomer, well meaniner face than hisen. And now it looked better than ever for it had pity onto it, which will make even humblyness look well. That man respects me deeply; he see the mission I was a performin’ on, and the hefty principles I was a carryin’ round with me on a tower, and now as he looked at my agitated face and then at the weepin’ bride, he stopped and says in that honest good way of hisen, and with that dretful clever look to his eyes:
“Josiah Allen’s wife, you are in trouble; can I help you in any way?”
“No,” says I, “not now you can’t.” I put a awful meanin’ axent onto that ‘now,’ and says he:
“Do I understand you to say Madam that at some future time I can? You know you can command me.”
(A better dispositioned, accommodatiner, well meaniner man, never walked afoot; I knew that from the first on’t.) But duty and justice hunched me up, one on each side, and says I sadly, “My advice wasn’t took, the Sentinal was licenced, and Solomon Cypher is drunk as a fool.”
He felt bad; he sithed, to think after all I had said and done about it, the Sentinal was licenced, and some of my folks had got drunk. It mortified him dretfully I know, but I wouldn’t say anything to make him feel any worse, and I only says, says I:
“The Nation wouldn’t take my advice, and you see if it don’t sup sorrow for it; you see if it don’t see worse effects from it than Solomon Cypher’s gittin’ drunk and playin’ horse. And if you see me to the next Sentinal, Joseph, you jest tell me if I haint in the right on’t.”
But I hadn’t no time to multiply any more words with him, for the bride groaned out agonizinly, and called on Doodle and his linement in such a heartbreakin’ way, they was enough to draw tears from a soap stun.
But I will pass over my sufferins of mind, body and ears, only sayin’ that they was truly tegus, till at last we stood before the recumbard form of Solomon Cypher a layin’ stretched out on the floor in as uncomfortable a position as I ever sot my eyes on; he looked almost exactly like a sick swine that Josiah had in the spring. But I hope to goodness the swine won’t never hear I said so, if it should, I should be ashamed and apologize to it, for that got sick on sweet whey, which is a far nobler sickness than likker sickness. And then the Lord had made that a brute by nater, and it hadn’t gone to work and made itself so as Solomon had.
But oh! how the bride did weep and cry as she looked down on him, and how heartrendin’ she did call on Doodle, sayin’ if he had lived she wouldn’t have been in that perdickerment; it was a strange time,—curious.
And we left him after leavin’ some money to have him let out jest as quick as he could walk. I didn’t try to do anything for Cornelius Cork or the Editor of the Auger’ses case. I was completely tuckered out; and in the mornin’ I was so lame that I couldn’t hardly stand on my feet. My back was in a awful state; it wasn’t so much a pain as I told Josiah, but there seemed to be a creek a runnin’ down through my back, as curious a feelin’ as I ever felt; and though we hadn’t seen half or a fourth of what we wanted to see, I told Josiah that we must start for home that day; had it not been for the creek runnin’ down my back we should have staid two days longer at least.
Josiah rubbed my back with linement before we started, almost tenderly; but right when he was rubbin’ in the linement the most nobby he says to me: “This creek wouldn’t never have been Samantha, if you hadn’t helped put a bail onto anybody.”
THE END OF OUR TOWER
Says I, “When anybody is preformin’ about a mission like mine, on a tower, and gits hurt; their noble honor, their happy conscience holds ’em up even if their own pardner tries to run ’em down.”
Says I, “Mebby it is all for the best, our goin’ home this mornin’, for that hen is liable to come off now any minute, and I ort to be there.”
He said he had been ready for a week, which indeed he had, for truly the price he had to pay for our two boards was enormous; I never see nor heerd of such costly boards before. So we started about half-past eight o’clock, calculatin’ to git home the second day, for we was goin’ home the shortest way, stayin’ one night to a tarvern.
And the next night about sundown my Josiah and me arrove home from the Sentinal, and it seemed as if old Nater had been a lottin’ on our comin’ and fixed up for us and made a fuss, everything looked so uncommon beautiful and pleasant. There had been a little shower that afternoon, and the grass in the door yard looked green and fresh as anything. The sweet clover in the meadow made the air smell good enough to eat if you could have got holt of it; our bees was a comin’ home loaded down with honey, and the robins in the maples and the trees over in the orchard sang jest as if they had been practicin’ a piece a purpose to meet us with, it was perfectly beautiful. And the posy beds and the mornin’ glories at the winders and the front porch, and the curtains at our bed-room winder, and the door step, and everything, looked so good to me that I turned and says to my pardner with a happy look:
“Home is the best place on earth, haint it Josiah Allen?” says I, “towers are pleasant to go off on, but they are tuckerin, especially high towers of principle such as I have been off a performin’ on.”
But Josiah looked fractious and worrysome, and says he:
“What I want to know is, what we are goin’ to have for supper; there haint no bread nor nothin’, and I’d as lives eat bass-wood chips and shingles as to eat Betsey Slimpsey’s cookin’.”
But I says in tender tones, for I knew I could soothe him down instantly:
“How long will it take your pardner, Josiah Allen, to make a mess of cream biscuit, and broil some of that nice steak we jest got to Jonesville, and mash up some potatoes? And you know,” says I in the same gentle axents, “there is good butter and cheese and honey and canned peaches and everything right in the suller.”
All the while I was speakin’, my Josiah’s face begun to look happier and happier, and more peaceful and resigned, and as I finished, and he got down to help me out, he looked me radiantly and affectionately in the face, and says he:
“It is jest as you say, Samantha; there’s no place like home.”
HOME AFFAIRS
Says I, “I knew you would feel jest so; home when it is the home of the heart as well as the body, is almost a heaven below. And,” I added in the same tones, or pretty nigh the same, “mebby you had better git me a little kindlin’ wood Josiah, before you unharness.”
He complied with my request and in about an hour’s time we sot down to a supper good enough for a king, and Josiah said it was. He acted happy, very, and exceedinly clever; he had found everything right to the barn, and I also to the house, and we felt well. And though we had held firm, and wouldn’t have took no rash means to git rid of our trouble, it did seem such a blessed relief to be at rest from David Doodle; it seemed so unutterably sweet not to have his linement throwed in our faces every moment.
Thomas J. wasn’t comin’ home till Saturday. We see him and Tirzah Ann as we come through Jonesville, and they said the last of the ‘Creation Searchers’ had got home, but their conduct had leaked out through the bride and the Editor of the Auger’ses wife, and they dassant go out in the street, any one of ’em, they had so much fun poked at ’em. Betsey come in at night; she had been to Miss Daggets to work, and she had a flour sack with some beans, and other provisions.
Says I in pityin’ axents, “How do you do, Betsey?”
Well she said she enjoyed real poor health; she had got the shingles the worst kind, and a swelled neck, and the newraligy, and the ganders, and says she, “Havin’ to support a big family in this condition makes it hard for me.”
“Don’t your husband help you any, Betsey?” says I.
“Oh!” says she, “he is down with the horrers the hull time,” says she, “my work days haint half so bad as the hard times I have nights,” she said she didn’t git no sleep at all hardly.
Says I, “Haint you most sorry Betsey that you ever tried to git married?”
She felt so bad and was so discouraged and down-hearted that she come out the plainest I ever see her, and says she:
“Josiah Allen’s wife, I’ll tell you the truth! If it wasn’t for the name of bein’ married, and the dignity I got by bein’ in that state, I should be sorry as I could be; but,” says she as she lifted her flour sack of provisions onto her tired shoulders previous to startin’ home, “I wouldn’t part with the dignity I got by bein’ married, not for a ten cent bill, as bad as I want money, and as much as I need it.”
